The wayhouse drifts into view and I have the sudden, violent urge to launch myself into the nearest ditch.

  In daylight it looks smaller—less like shelter, more like an old barn someone forgot to finish. The roof sags. The door hangs crooked.

  Today the sky is clean. The road is dry. No rain or mud trying to swallow the wheels. Just a clear morning and fields cut into rough squares, wind moving through grass like it has nowhere better to be.

  Strange, seeing it again.

  It’s been a few months since the first supply run after… and the trip back. Long enough that my emotions should’ve settled.

  They haven’t.

  Just looking at it, I can smell smoke and wet straw again—and remember heat pushing the cold back inch by inch. And my face goes warm for reasons I’m not naming.

  I look away fast, like the wayhouse can see what I’m thinking.

  The cart rattles over a rut. Alkek shifts on the bench. He glances sideways, catches me looking back at the wayhouse, and his mouth curls.

  “Oh?” he says, voice too innocent. “Missing the scenic accommodations?”

  I groan. “Don’t.”

  He bumps my shoulder with his elbow, playful. “What? It’s a fine establishment. Roof only leaks a little. Straw’s… mostly clean.”

  “Shut up,” I mutter, but it comes out more embarrassed than angry.

  He grins wider, like he’s proud of himself. “We might have time on the way back,” he says, and there’s a wink in it—quick and conspiratorial.

  My face goes hot.

  I glare at him, trying and failing to keep my voice flat. “You’re impossible.”

  “For you, I’m a miracle worker,” he says, dead serious. “I love you. That’s the part you’re supposed to remember.”

  “I know,” I say—too fast—and half shove him, because if I did it for real he’d end up in the ditch.

  He doesn’t even try to hide the grin. Just clicks his tongue at the horse like he didn’t hear my heart trip over itself.

  Since the first time he said it, I still haven’t gotten used to being told that.

  We roll on, the wayhouse shrinking behind us until it’s just another sagging blur on the roadside—

  and I keep my eyes forward, cheeks still warm, telling myself I’m only smiling because the sun’s in my face.

  The road settles back into itself. Ruts. Stone walls. Fields. Warm dirt and cut grass. The horse keeps a steady, bored rhythm, the wheels complain over every bump, and Alkek hums under his breath—some half-remembered tune that never quite decides to be a song.

  By midday the capital’s on the horizon—patchwork wall, familiar noise. Angel’s ribs still sit over it like a broken crown.

  The king’s gate is one ugly knot of carts and bodies—sweat, horse shit, fresh bread, and guards barking the same orders over and over.

  Alkek steers us out of the line before we even reach it, cutting along the wall where there’s room to breathe.

  I don’t even have to look far for the Keepers. Their gate is clean—no rabble, no line, no begging hands.

  “Alkek,” the Keeper calls, voice flat but not unfriendly.

  Alkek lifts two fingers in greeting. “Morning. Tell me Garos is here and not that fish-faced clerk.”

  The Keeper’s mouth twitches. “Not on duty, but I can get him.”

  “Please do,” Alkek says, all teeth.

  The Keeper jerks his chin toward the side lane. “Wait over there. Can’t have you blocking the hatch.”

  We ease the cart off the main road and stop where they want us—right on the edge of their space.

  In the bed of the cart, under a tarp, sits the real reason we’re here: Maro’s “cold box.” A waist-high chest of scavenged black metal and cracked insulation, with a fist-sized slot in the side where the power stone—battery, if you know the word—slides in. It doesn’t make ice. It just keeps things cold enough that meat lasts, milk doesn’t sour by noon, and ale from tasting like the bottom of a barrel.

  It’s also been dying for days.

  Garos steps out from the hatch like he’s been waiting there the whole time—early thirties, hard-lean muscle, dark coat with clean stitching, hair tied back the same way. His face has the tight, habitual annoyance of someone who doesn’t get peace. A pink scar runs his knuckles, fresh.

  His eyes flick to Alkek, then to me.

  They pause.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Just for half a beat too long.

  Then he grins like it’s an old joke. “There you are,” he says. “Been a few months since the village idiot came by. And now you’re bringing company? Toll-men give you trouble with her on your hip?”

  “They tried,” Alkek says. “But she’s more than they can handle.” He throws me a quick wink like he’s proud of himself.

  Garos’s brows lift. “That right?”

  Alkek jerks his chin at me. “Sol. Sol, this is Keeper Garos. He pretends he doesn’t like me.”

  “I don’t like you,” Garos agrees immediately. Then he looks at me. “You’re Maro’s…?”

  “Help,” I say.

  “Temporary,” Alkek adds with a dramatic little sigh. “Sadly.”

  Garos’s eyes cut to him. “Sure.”

  I keep my face blank and my shoulders relaxed. Small girl. Black hair. Blue eyes. Human teeth. Normal.

  Garos steps closer to the cart, palms open—not touching, just assessing. His gaze lands on the tarp, then the shape beneath it, and his mouth twitches like he already knows. “You here for a charge?”

  “That’s the plan,” Alkek says. “Da’s cold box is about to go warm. If it dies, he’ll start pickling everything in salt and calling it ‘flavor.’”

  Garos huffs a laugh despite himself. “All right. Usual rules.” He points at the inner gate. “You can bring the cart to yard two. But you”—his finger tilts toward me without touching—“you still get scanned.”

  My stomach drops a fraction.

  “Scanned?” I repeat, careful.

  Garos glances at Alkek like he’s about to explain something obvious. “Routine. Anyone we don’t know. Keeps the stupid out.” He looks back at me. “You ever been through a Keeper hatch?”

  “No,” I say.

  “Then you get checked,” he says, still calm. “Contraband, sickness, parasites.”

  Alkek’s voice goes easy. “It’s fine. It’s just a box. Quick and done.”

  A box.

  Great.

  I force my jaw to unclench and nod once, like I’m mildly annoyed and not suddenly hyper-aware of every secret tucked under my skin.

  “Fine,” I say. Valicar—please. Don’t let him see what I am.

  Garos steps back and pulls a small device from his coat—metal, palm-sized, with a dull glass face. He thumbs it awake.

  A faint hum.

  I feel Valicar stir, a barely-there pressure behind my eyes, like a dog lifting its head.

  Garos holds the device up and gestures me closer. “Stand still. Arms out.”

  I do, slow. I lift my arms.

  Garos moves the scanner down my body—chest, ribs, stomach, hips—methodical. His face stays neutral the way you stay neutral around snakes.

  Alkek leans on the cart rail behind him, watching like it’s boring.

  It should be boring.

  The scanner hum changes pitch.

  A soft beep.

  Garos’s eyes flick down to the glass face.

  His expression shifts.

  He scans again, slower this time, hovering the device over my lower belly, and it continues to beep away.

  “Congrats,” he says, casual—almost distracted.

  I blink hard. “What?”

  He lifts the device again, runs it once more in a small arc, then lowers it with a faint grunt of confirmation.

  “A few months along,” he says, like he’s telling me the weather. Then his eyes cut to Alkek, and for the first time a hint of amusement creeps into his voice. “You’re the father, eh?”

  Alkek goes dead still.

  “What—” he starts, and the word breaks.

  Garos claps him on the shoulder—quick, friendly, heavy enough to mean it.

  “Congratulations to you too, old friend,” he says.

  The world goes quiet in a way it has no right to.

  A cart creaks past in slow motion. Somebody laughs. A dog barks once. The moment stretches and refuses to break.

  But for me everything goes muffled and far away.

  I’m pregnant.

  The realization hits like a punch to the gut.

  Alkek straightens so fast the cart rail thumps. “Sol?”

  My mouth opens.

  Nothing comes out.

  My hands go cold. My stomach flips, hard, like it’s trying to crawl out of me.

  Fuck.

  No, no, no—

  I force air into my lungs. It scrapes on the way in.

  “This is…” Alkek stammers, eyes locked on me. “Good news.”

  Garos’s gaze stays on my face. “Unexpected?”

  I stare down at my stomach like the answer might show up if I glare hard enough.

  I should’ve known.

  My brain flips backward through time like it’s hunting for an excuse.

  Phoenix changes.

  I wouldn’t have known the normal way. No cycle. No blood. No little monthly reminder—not since Earth, before Jericho. Just… nothing.

  So I told myself it was a blessing. A mercy. One less human inconvenience in a life that didn’t get to be human.

  I knew there was a chance. A stupid one. I took it anyway because for once I wanted to forget what I am and just—be.

  And I would’ve had no way to know.

  Not unless I asked.

  Valicar.

  It should’ve told me.

  My throat closes. The edges of my vision bleach out.

  Garos says something—maybe my name—but it comes through like I’m watching this from underwater.

  Alkek reaches toward me, slow and careful, like I’m a kicked dog that might still bite. “Hey,” he says quietly. “Look at me.”

  I can’t.

  If I look at him, I’ll see it—hope, panic, joy, horror—whatever’s about to crawl across his face. And my skull is already full of screaming.

  Valicar.

  My mind grabs for it like a railing.

  Valicar—confirm. Why the fuck didn’t you alert me?

  For half a heartbeat, nothing—just the real-world hum of the scanner in Garos’s hand and the phantom hiss of rain in my memory.

  Then the HUD ghosts across my vision.

  [VALICAR: CONFIRMATION — GRAVID STATUS: TRUE]

  [VALICAR: EST. GESTATION: 13–14 WEEKS · CONFIDENCE: 98.87%]

  [VALICAR: PRIOR USER DIRECTIVE — “Unless something’s trying to kill me, be quiet.”]

  [VALICAR: NON-CRITICAL OUTPUT MUTED]

  I stare at it even as my feet shift—my body already choosing exits.

  My own words, shoved back down my throat.

  Non-critical.

  Bile climbs so fast it burns, and my body moves before my brain gives permission.

  I turn.

  I run.

  Alkek’s voice cracks behind me—loud, panicked.

  “Sol, wait!”

  I don’t look back.

  I was finally happy.

  I was finally human.

  I was finally allowed to be small and stupid and warm on a hill under pink-edged moons, holding someone’s hand like it mattered.

  And then my body betrays me in the oldest way.

  A sound claws up my throat—not a sob and not a laugh—and I keep running.

  For the first few steps I don’t even feel it. I let my body take the wheel, because it’s safer if I’m not in it.

  Tell me the gender. Tell me it isn’t a boy. Tell me it’s not going to chew its way out of me… I hate myself for thinking it, and I think it anyway. Valicar. Can you fucking kill it?

  [VALICAR: FETAL KARYOTYPE DETECTED — XX]

  [VALICAR: SEX CLASSIFICATION: FEMALE]

  [VALICAR: TERMINATION UNLIKELY — PHOENIX WILL PRIORITIZE VIABILITY]

  Something in my chest snaps—because it isn’t just a baby. It’s immortal, like me.

  Hungry—and Phoenix will make sure she stays that way. Alive.

  A future queen-node.

  The first of Homo Immortalis.

  The world blurs as I sprint—past the tent rows and the cheap stalls only the poor can afford to set up outside the city, past carts sweating in a long line at the king’s gate.

  Toll-men shout numbers like they’re spells. Guards bark at people to keep moving. Someone yells at me to slow down—like slowing down is a choice.

  I dip under an arm, shoulder past a man hauling a sack, vault a cart tongue, and don’t even flinch when a hand snaps for my sleeve and misses.

  I don’t stop. Because the second I do, I’ll feel it—and if I feel it, I’ll break.